Otoko no otoko
by miskatonic
Summary: On the beat with Kannuki and Terazuma. Kannuki ponders the mystery of males; she gets ice cream for her trouble.
1. Otoko no otoko

_Maegaki:_ Yami no Matsuei (Descendent of the Dark) and all characters from the series belong to Matsushita Youko sensei; it is serialized once in a while in Hana to Yume Comics. Spoilers through tankoubon volume 11. These characters appear in the manga only, not the anime, so here's the relevant info. 

Meifu is the land of the dead, and it's administered by a bureaucratic system, the Juou-cho, which judges the dead on the basis of their past deeds and assigns their ultimate fates. The court bureau, Enma-cho, is headed by Enma-Daiou, god of hell. Enma-cho's jurisdiction is divided into ten areas. The staff of the Shokan, the court's summons division, comprise the lowest tier of each block's staff -- high status, but bottom of the barrel pay scale (just like life...sigh). They retrieve the souls in the difficult or unsolvable cases, as referred to them by the divisions farther up the bureaucratic system. The staff of Enma-cho Shokan are also known as "shinigami," gods of death. 

Chogoku, Gokan-cho (4th area) Shinigami: Wakaba Kannuki, 18 years of service (senior partner), junior high school student at her time of death, also a hereditary miko and "keeper" of the Suzaku Gate. Hajime Terazuma, 6 years of service (junior partner), 28-year-old police detective in Hiroshima Prefecture at his time of death. [Also see the atogaki.] 

* * *

**Otoko no Otoko**

"Aaa-ta! There he is!" 

As predicted, the small boy was sitting firmly, implacably on the curb. 

The computer had calculated a 95% probability that Yamada Shirou, 5 years old, would fail to appear for his scheduled court appointment, based on his stubborn personality and attachment to his mother. The juvenile court advocate of Gokan-cho had put in an early watch request for this case to the Summons Division. 

"Shirou-chan, konichi-wa!" Wakaba Kannuki announced cheerfully. She leaned over him and smiled. 

The boy's lower lip protruded. He pointedly ignored both Kannuki and her stonily silent partner, Hajime Terazuma. 

"Shirou-chan..." Kannuki said. Sirens were beginning to wail in the near distance. She sorted a few ofuda scripts from her pocket and tossed them to the side to block the sound. She always found the sirens distracting. 

"What the hell are you doing now?" her partner snarled at her, lighting the ever-present cigarette dangling from his lips. "Just grab the damn brat and let's go," 

Terazuma -- Hajime-chan, she called him, because he was so cutely annoyed by it -- had insisted they avoid the normal wait for the deceased's decision, and go collect this boy immediately. Shirou's tiny flame in the Castle of Candles had been snuffed scant moments before their arrival. 

Hajime-chan was so anxious for those promptness bonuses lately; division secretary Tatsumi-san was still docking his wages for repair costs after that last disagreement Hajime-chan had had with second-block shinigami Tsuzuki-san. 

Tsuzuki-san's reputation as the Enma-cho "demon of destruction" always seemed to inspire similar high achievement in others. It was just too bad -- Kannuki had loved the new library building. 

But Hajime-chan's newest work incentive was becoming tiring. Unlike him, she didn't have an on-board shikigami to draw physical energy from. As keeper of the Suzaku Gate, one of the four entries to the Gensoukai, the world of the gods, an "attendant-god" of her own would have been a conflict of interest. 

Not that Hajime-chan's shikigami was an unqualified benefit. 

The new library had been so lovely. 

She sighed. 

"Hajime-chan, that's not very nice," Kannuki said mildly. She crouched down beside the boy, tucking in the pleated folds of her sailor-fuku school uniform around her legs. 

"Nice! Since when does 'nice' have a damn thing to do with this job?" 

She shook her head. As always, he had a point. If Shirou-chan had been older, this outright refusal to comply with his own death would make him a good candidate for shinigami as well. _We're all too willing to do whatever it takes,_ she thought, _if we can maintain our grasp on this shadow of our former lives just a little longer._

_Even if it means the death of babies like Shirou-chan here._

But now was not the time. She shot her partner a warning look, and turned back to their current case. "Shirou-chan, I'm Wakaba. Yoroshiku ne! Well, we're here to take you back home now." 

"Kaachan is supposed to take me home, not you," he said flatly, not looking at her. 

"Well, yes, but--" 

"And I'm not supposed to talk to strange people!" he shouted. "Kaachan said! She said that if I got lost, I was supposed to stay put, and not talk to ANYONE but a policeman! And I'm not supposed to go with ANYONE but a policeman!" 

_Ah ha._ Kannuki grinned. "Of course, and that's very wise! Hajime-chan is a policeman, you know." 

"Ehhh?" He glanced at her for the first time, startled. Then his eyes strayed to her partner, who'd been resolutely ignoring the entire exchange. 

"Hajime-chan?" she prompted. 

He studied the sky dourly, apparently seeking patience somewhere among the clouds. Then, without looking, he reached into his trenchcoat, whipped out a small case. He flipped it open and held it aloft in a practiced move. 

"Hiroshima Prefecture Police, Detective-grade, Terazuma." 

The boy's eyes were round as plates. "That was ... just like on TV," he breathed. 

"Exactly!" Kannuki nodded vigorously. 

"Yeah, whatever. So let's cut the crap here and roll," Hajime-chan said, shoving his wallet back into the recesses of his coat. 

Kannuki cringed at this newest descent into rudeness, but the boy looked delighted. 

"We really do have to go now, Shirou-chan," she said. 

"But..." Impressed as he'd been Hajime-chan's walking the talk, she saw that Shirou was still regarding them both with a doubtful expression. He blurted, "Oneesan has weird eyes, and the detectives on TV don't look like that." He pointed at her partner. 

Kannuki reddened, and refused to look at Hajime-chan and the smug "should have done it my way" expression she knew he'd have. Her eyes were two different colors, a characteristic of a guardian of a gate to the god's realm. But Hajime-chan was the more difficult problem: The red eyes with slitted pupils, black stripes under his eyes, pointed ears, and fangs were all physical manifestations of his possesion by Kagan-kokushungei, his unwanted shikigami. 

_Hmm,_ she wondered, _so how do I explain about Kuro-chan?_

She gave it a shot. "I know he looks like a suspicious person, but it's all right," Kannuki said, lowering her voice conspiratorially. "I'll tell you a secret. The grouchy oniichan looks that way because he's really ... a monster cat!" 

"A, a monster cat?" 

"A huge, enormous cat. With long black hair. And red eyes. The size of, of ... of a _library building._" 

Hajime-chan -- who, of course, was listening to none of this -- visibly winced. 

"Really?" Shirou looked intrigued, if not yet convinced. 

"I swear it. It's completely true." She lowered her voice even further. "But, um, he's a grumpy cat as well. You can probably tell that. It's a problem." 

"Obaachan-next-door's cat is grumpy," he said thoughtfully. 

"Ah. What do you do?" Kannuki gave him a stern look. "You don't throw rocks at that cat, do you?" 

"No! I give it leftover fish sometimes. It likes that, and then while it's eating it I can pet it. It's stripy and yellow." 

"That's very clever." Kannuki said, with an approving slap of fist to palm. "Even the grumpy cats like fish. Then they're not always so grumpy." 

"Ne, I don't think they know they're grumpy. They just think they're normal cats." 

"Ah, there's that." She nodded. "Shirou-chan, you're absolutely right. I should feed him more fish in his obentou." 

The boy giggled. Hajime-chan apparently had had enough. 

"Kannuki!" he growled. 

"Oh. Well, he's very impatient. We do need to go." She held out her hand. "Shirou-chan?" 

He still didn't move. 

"Shirou-chan," she said softly. "You remember that big truck that came around the corner back there?" 

He nodded. "I got out of the way. That was a stupid driver!" 

"Very stupid," she agreed sadly. "He knows that now." She looked away, poked a finger at a rock on the street. "It was very brave to try to get out of the way. Many people would have just gotten scared and not moved at all." She hesitated, then said it: "You almost made it, too. But ... you know you didn't." 

She heard the sniff, and looked back. A tear was rolling down his cheek. 

"Ah, but that's why we're here. Shi-chan..." She reached out gently to touch his face. 

"Yamada Shirou-kun!" Hajime-chan barked suddenly. "Are you _crying?_ Aren't you a man?" 

Kannuki and Shirou both sat up stiffly. "E-eh?" 

"You," he sneered. "What would your mother think, seeing you sitting there blubbing with a dirty face?" He tossed down his cigarette butt and ground it under heel. 

"A-ah," the boy started hastily wiping at his tear-sodden cheek with his shirt sleeve, only succeeding in smearing it worse. 

"Te-terazuma!" Kannuki said, appalled. 

He was ignoring her. "You've already worried your family's spirits here with your thoughtless behavior -- chasing balls into the street and not looking! Are you sorry for that?" 

Shirou looked around, alarmed. "Hai! Go-gomen..." 

"Is this _gaman_? Are you going to trouble them further with this improper behavior?" 

"N-no." 

"That's a man's attitude," Hajime-chan said, satisfied. He rapped out another cigarette from his pack and lit it. Then he waved his hand abruptly, cigarette between two fingers. "A _man_ recognizes his responsibilities _and_ keeps his appointments. _That_ would make your mother proud." He snapped: "On your feet!" 

Kannuki and Shirou both shot off the curb. Kannuki blinked, confused. 

"Let's go! Kannuki. Yamada-kun." He shoved the cigarette back between his lips, and spun on his heel. 

She held out her hand again. "Shirou-chan?" 

"A,ano. Can I," his voice dropped to a whisper, "maybe could I go with the monster cat oniisan?" 

"What was _that_?" Hajime-chan turned his head and looked down on the both of them. Kannuki quailed at his expression. Slitted eyes, grim set of mouth, dangling cigarette -- her partner in his most frightening "suspect interrogation" mode. 

"A,ano, boku..." Shirou began haltingly. Then with more force he said, "Shirou wants to go with the cat-detective-oniisan!" 

"Chi-." Hajime-chan swiftly stooped down; he scooped the child under his arm like a sack of rice, and stalked off down the street. 

Kannuki stumbled after, in his long-legged wake. By the time she'd caught up, the child had graduated to Hajime-chan's hip. 

"Is detective-oniisan ... _really_ a cat?" Shirou was asking. 

"Lion." 

Kannuki heard the sharp intake of breath, and rolled her eyes. Who knew that lions were more manly than cats? 

"Do, do you have a gun?" 

"Yeah." 

Silence. Then, "How can _I_ be in the police?" 

"Education. Training. Guts," Terazuma said curtly. "Think you got what it takes to bring dangerous criminals to justice?" 

He nodded, finger in mouth. 

"Did you have something to _say_, Yamada-kun?" 

"Hai!" 

"Keep it in mind for the next round then," Terazuma said. "The police can always use good men." 

"Hai!" 

"Women too," he added grudgingly. "But you don't have to have anything to do with 'em when you're not working." 

"H-hai?" 

"We have to stop for ice cream for that Kannuki. But these women, they bitch up a storm and won't let you read your damn paper in peace if they gotta eat by themselves, so we'll just have to have some too." 

"Because ... we're men?" 

"Yeah. That's right." 

Kannuki latched on to the trailing belt of Hajime-chan's trenchcoat and let herself be towed along, hair ribbons flying. And she pondered the strangeness of men. 

* * *

_Atogaki:_ Posted elsewhere, now moved here. I took a wild guess at some stuff. For example, the character book says Terazuma was 28, but doesn't say how long he's been in the division. It says Kannuki was a junior high student, no age specified, and that she's been in the division for 18 years. She's been there far longer than Terazuma; he's her second partner, per volume 9. Appearances aside, she's older than he is, I believe. And I suspect that the only person with less time on the job than Hajime-chan is the new kid, Hisoka Kurosaki. 


	2. A day at the office

**A day at the office; Or, "Actually, this is a reply to the reviews"**

"Ah, here you all are!" 

The small girl with bicolored eyes, long wavy hair and hair ribbons, bounced through the doorway to alight in the Fourth Area office. 

"I'm sooo sorry to keep you waiting. Hajimemashite! I'm Fourth Area Shikigami Wakaba Kannuki! Douzo yoroshiku onegaishimasu!" 

She tucked her hands before her and bowed, all sailor-suited, junior-high perkiness. "I'm descended from a long line of shinto priestesses, and I'm psychic. Oh, I'm the keeper of the Suzaku Gate to the gods' realm -- which has two tooootally HOT biseinen guardian tengu!" 

At that last statement, underneath a fog of cigarette smoke, the newspaper propped open at the nearby desk quivered slightly. 

"And this person," she extended a hand, "is my partner, Hajime Terazuma-san!" The newspaper was now solidly immobile. 

"He was a police detective!" Nothing. 

"He's an excellent shot and an expert at archery too." Silence. 

"Terazuma-san?" 

She frowned lightly. 

"He wishes everyone will please call him Hajime-chan!" 

The paper lowered. Under the untidy mop of black hair, two sullen, slitted red eyes, dark stripes below them, glared at her. 

She waved a placating hand: "Eh heh heh, just a joke!" she assured him hastily. 

The paper resumed its former position. 

She bounced some more, happily. "Hajime and I are both hoping more people will write about us! We only show up for a few seconds in the opening sequence of the anime, but both of us are regular supporting characters in the manga! 

"But still, there aren't any manga stories about us by ourselves, so you can use your imagination! And there's so much to do in the Fourth Area! Even if you're dead!" 

The paper snorted. 

"Hajime-chan, please tell them," she urged. 

The paper crackled as a page turned. 

"Hajime-chan." 

"_Chi-_" the paper grunted, "what the hell do you want me to say, Kannuki?" 

"Well, about our _jobs_ as shinigami," she said with careful emphasis, "about how _very exciting_ the Fourth Area is." 

"Very exciting," he repeated woodenly. He lowered the paper fractionally and stared at her. "Yesterday it rained." 

"But that's not--" 

"Keh, maybe not for you," he said. Terazuma turned his chair so that his back was to her, propped up his elbow on his desk, and elaborately lit another cigarette. Then he returned to his paper and proceeded to ignore her. 

"Well, ah, what Hajime-chan means," she said with a strained smile, "is that his parasite shikigami, Kuro-chan, likes it when it's not sunny. It makes him feel really active!" 

"Who the hell is this 'Kuro-chan,' dammit!" he said staring at her over his shoulder with a thunderous expression. 

It was Kannuki's turn to ignore _him_. "Hajime-chan's shikigami, Kagan-kokushungei, is a long-haired black, horned, red-eyed lion! Kuro-chan's soooo _kakkoiii!_" She held up a finger: "He protects Hajime-chan, you know, but sometimes he just does what he wants to. Ah, he can be a just a _little_ bit destructive..." 

"Goddamn shikigami," Terazuma muttered, scowling blackly. "Who needs 'em?" 

She sighed heavily, and in a stage whisper added, "Well, now that you can see him better, you can tell. Hajime-chan is very good-looking, isn't he?" 

"Kannuki!" 

She jumped guiltily. "Eh?" 

"Whatever you're babbling about over there, enough already. We've got work to do and BILLS to pay, in case you've forgotten." 

"_Someone,_ who has a bad temper, has bills to pay, yes," she retorted. 

He flinched. 

"But you, you even aren't _trying_ to help, Hajime-chan." She gazed at him, eyes suspiciously moist. "How can we earn bonuses without fanfiction? And _no one_ will want to write about us if, if you keep acting like this..." 

"Well, who cares?" he muttered uneasily, uncomfortable under the potential threat of feminine assault by dampness. "Let 'em keep writing about 'sempai' over there, and his slacker work ethic and his pathetic loser love-life." 

"Hajime-chan, Tsuzuki-san is very good at his job!" 

"Yeah. That bastard's great for cleaning out the moldy leftovers in the breakroom fridge. Makes a good doorstop, too." 

"But he's also a friend of ours," Kannuki reminded him. 

"The. Hell." 

"Oh, Hajime-chan," she said, leaning over, her finger hovering a few centimeters before his nose. "You know that, really, you do like Tsuzuki-san... You even went to see him in the hospital wing, and it was just so cute, the way you--" 

"D,dammit, Kannuki, you, you _woman!_ Don't TOUCH me!" he snarled, breaking into a sweat and throwing his chair backward. 

"I'm _not_, I just--" 

One of the wheels of his retreating chair rolled over her toe, and she squealed, overbalancing. Her hand brushed his cheek. 

"Ka-kannuki, bakayaarr--**raaaaaarrRRAAAGHHH!!!**" 

"Oops!" She ducked down under the raining plaster, scurrying away from the massive paw that flattened the nearest desk. "Hajime-chan, gomen gomen!" 

As she dug through her pockets for some nice, soothing, shiki-calming ofuda, she said brightly, "Ah, well, of course, what Hajime-chan _meant_ to say was, 'Yes, I also think there should be more fanfiction about the Fourth Area!' 

"And we'll have to stop now, because," she leaned over to hook up a shredded black necktie over her finger, "this is _not_ an adult fanfiction." She arched an eyebrow and added sotto voice, "After I use this ofuda, Hajime-chan won't be wearing any clothes at all, ne." 

**"RAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!"**

"Coming, coming!" Kannuki patted the dust from her hair, and skipped out of the way of another errant paw. 

Over the din of tumbling walls, Chief Kanoe could heard down the hall doing his own roaring about building repair and paycheck docking. 

* * *

Konnichiwa! My apologies for all that rampaging Japanese; it seemed appropriate for something set in Japan, and I hope it was easy to figure out in context. Sometimes I do tap out stories for myself, but I've never posted any of them, because ... um, because not a writer. At all. Almost exclusively a happy reader. I don't imagine anything I crank out to please myself as audience-of-one is going to be very palatable for others. 

So this was a one-shot I did last winter for myself; I'm very fond of the supporting characters in the _Yami_ manga, especially the most improbable detective duo ever. Wakaba-chan is a perfect Mary Sue, isn't she? She's terribly kawaii and genki, and she has the hair, the eyes, and the psychic powers. Plus she's surrounded by all those iro-otoko who adore her. I don't understand how can anyone resist that. 

But lots of people seem to be resisting lots. In the reader way, I got frustrated when I couldn't find any English fanfic featuring these two, and over time started to feel an uncharacteristic urge to share my rendition of Genki!Kannuki and Sawaranee!Terazuma. So I put this one online. More of an experiment than anything else. 

I'm really very surprised and touched that other people have read it here. Thank you so much for reading. Minna-sama, otsukiai arigatou gozaimashita! 


End file.
